In affected severity d’Urberville continued—­

“Entirely.  I have broken every engagement since that afternoon I was to address the drunkards at Casterbridge Fair.  The deuce only knows what I am thought of by the brethren.  Ah-ha!  The brethren!  No doubt they pray for me—­weep for me; for they are kind people in their way.  But what do I care?  How could I go on with the thing when I had lost my faith in it?—­it would have been hypocrisy of the basest kind!  Among them I should have stood like Hymenaeus and Alexander, who were delivered over to Satan that they might learn not to blaspheme.  What a grand revenge you have taken!  I saw you innocent, and I deceived you.  Four years after, you find me a Christian enthusiast; you then work upon me, perhaps to my complete perdition!  But Tess, my coz, as I used to call you, this is only my way of talking, and you must not look so horribly concerned.  Of course you have done nothing except retain your pretty face and shapely figure.  I saw it on the rick before you saw me—­that tight pinafore-thing sets it off, and that wing-bonnet—­you field-girls should never wear those bonnets if you wish to keep out of danger.”  He regarded her silently for a few moments, and with a short cynical laugh resumed:  “I believe that if the bachelor-apostle, whose deputy I thought I was, had been tempted by such a pretty face, he would have let go the plough for her sake as I do!”

Tess attempted to expostulate, but at this juncture all her fluency failed her, and without heeding he added: 

“Well, this paradise that you supply is perhaps as good as any other, after all.  But to speak seriously, Tess.”  D’Urberville rose and came nearer, reclining sideways amid the sheaves, and resting upon his elbow.  “Since I last saw you, I have been thinking of what you said that HE said.  I have come to the conclusion that there does seem rather a want of common-sense in these threadbare old propositions; how I could have been so fired by poor Parson Clare’s enthusiasm, and have gone so madly to work, transcending even him, I cannot make out!  As for what you said last time, on the strength of your wonderful husband’s intelligence—­whose name you have never told me—­about having what they call an ethical system without any dogma, I don’t see my way to that at all.”

“Why, you can have the religion of loving-kindness and purity at least, if you can’t have—­what do you call it—­dogma.”

“O no!  I’m a different sort of fellow from that!  If there’s nobody to say, ’Do this, and it will be a good thing for you after you are dead; do that, and if will be a bad thing for you,’ I can’t warm up.  Hang it, I am not going to feel responsible for my deeds and passions if there’s nobody to be responsible to; and if I were you, my dear, I wouldn’t either!”

She tried to argue, and tell him that he had mixed in his dull brain two matters, theology and morals, which in the primitive days of mankind had been quite distinct.  But owing to Angel Clare’s reticence, to her absolute want of training, and to her being a vessel of emotions rather than reasons, she could not get on.